


Everything Goes My Way

by withthepilot



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Break Up, Broken Engagement, Comfort Sex, F/M, Open Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-23
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 04:05:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withthepilot/pseuds/withthepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After all these years, he's there for her, comforting and solid. But things are different now and they both know it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Goes My Way

**Author's Note:**

> I began this shortly after Zoe and her beau ended their engagement. Just wrapped it up, now that her follow-up relationship has apparently ended. I guess there's still hope for my rampant imagination.
> 
> Title borrowed from the Metronomy song.

It takes a few days, but he doesn't disappoint her. He never has. She's never given him the opportunity.

Things are different now.

_How you holding up? _the screen reads. Zoe tucks her knees closer to her chest and uses both thumbs to type her reply.__

_You know me. Big girl wearing her big girl pants._

_Of that, I have no doubt._ And she can almost hear the chuckle in his reply. _I'm not far. Call if/when you need._

It's what she expects to hear, but it's still comforting. Zoe puts the phone aside for the night and finds a comfortable, sunken-in spot on the sofa. The obnoxious sounds of late-night television bleed into a steady static.

*

The weeks crawl. She's in the middle of breakfast and her second cigarette of the day when she spies her phone next to her open magazine and considers it thoughtfully. She scrolls through her recent messages with one thumb and exhales a plume of smoke.

_Okay_ , she types. _Ready._

Not ten minutes later, her phone buzzes. _How did you know I was itching to take you to dinner tonight?_

_Low key, please. They're watching me like hawks._

_Burger King drive-thru it is._

She smiles for the first time in days, her teeth catching on her lower lip.

*

He's a dream in a dark gray jacket and a navy shirt, looking as though he has no use for anyone in the world but her. She watches him from the bar's entrance, her clutch held tightly to her side. The way he cradles his tumbler in his palm, swirling the liquid inside, his eyes darting between the overhead football game and a wall clock. It's been a while and she isn't sure what she's going to say, nor what she wants to say. The past few hours have been a blur of imagined scenarios, capped off with a large glass of wine as she sat on the bed and stared at her wardrobe, waiting for something to jump out at her as the perfect outfit.

If there's anything Zoe has learned by now, it's that clothes send messages. And if you don't know what you want to say, there's not a scrap of fabric in the world that will do the trick.

She touches the hem of her jacket consciously and walks in, just as he glances toward the entrance. And just like that, they're both smiling. His arms are perfect around her waist, his cheek a stubbled cushion for her own. Zoe lets herself fall into him with a weary sigh. He pulls her close.

"How the hell are you, kid?"

"Been better," she says. "You?"

"Not bad." He props his chin on her shoulder. "A beautiful woman has kept me waiting, but not too long."

Zoe nods and opens her eyes, with no idea when she closed them. "Well, just a little while."

There's no apology to be had here and they both know it. So he orders her a drink.

*

They eat dinner at the bar, sitting side by side. It's a smart move on his part, she thinks—probably carefully planned, like almost everything he does. This way, they don't have to rush into anything, like prolonged eye contact or secret smiles across a too-small table.

There's a lull in the conversation and she can tell that he wants to ask her about it. But then he just compliments her outfit. Zoe laughs.

"Karl. Thank you, but." She shakes her head and takes a small bite of fish. "It just happened, okay? It was good and then it just…died."

"No, I wasn't—"

"You were and it's okay." She pauses and looks at her wineglass. "You know how some things just run their course? You wake up one day and look at the other person and there's nothing left?" Her sinuses tingle and she knows there are tears waiting below the surface. But he doesn't want to see that. Moreover, she doesn't want him to see. "Eleven years and I had nothing left. I ran out of everything. I'm not really sure how that happens."

"It happens," Karl says. He clasps her knee and squeezes it gently. Zoe isn't sure by the look in his eyes whether or not he knows what she means, but there's a kindness there that she clings to, that she needs.

For his sake, she hopes he has no idea.

When they're done, he insists on paying, so she lets him. His insistence reminds Zoe of another time, during the press tour, way back when. They'd been drinking, shot after shot, and everyone else wandered off somewhere, leaving them with the bill. Even Cho, who was normally trustworthy with these things. Karl went for his wallet and Zoe kept saying _no no no no no_ , leaning closer and closer until her mouth skimmed his cheek. He turned to her, his warm breath puffing against her lips for mere seconds until he tilted his chin up to kiss her temple. _Yes_ , he answered simply, pulling out a credit card.

"I can drive you home," he says now. She smiles, sips her wine, and reminds herself to breathe.

"Yes."

*

There was another time she remembers, sitting on a hotel balcony, an open pack of cigarettes and half-empty bottle of wine between them. Wherever they were, it was hot. Stifling.

"Nat and I are open," he said. His gaze trailed slowly along her bare legs before he looked back at her face. "So if you ever…"

"Right, but I'm not." She touched her cigarette's filter to her lips, not inhaling. "Not right now. Probably not ever."

He looked out at the bright lights of the city, sprawled before them. "No," he agreed.

*

She stares at his jaw, his hands on the steering wheel, and thinks he must remember, too.

_Call if/when you need._

*

His hands. They're warm as they slip off her jacket and skim the fabric of her dress, though Zoe thinks she can feel them shake just the tiniest bit. She reaches behind her to touch Karl's hip and the trembling stops. The zipper flies undone and the fabric falls. Whatever her outfit wanted to say, it's done its part. His lips against her nape are a revelation and she wonders if she's been waiting for this, just this, all these years.

She wonders about love and why it has to be so hard. Why people make it so complicated when they can just have this.

"Zoe," he murmurs, when she turns to unbutton his shirt. She doesn't answer and he tilts her chin up with two gentle fingers. "Hey. You sure about this?"

"You act like you didn't know what I meant when I said 'ready.'"

"Didn't want to get ahead of myself." Karl kisses her, just below her ear. "I've been thinking about you—this, for…"

"Years," she finishes. She cups his face in her hands and looks into his eyes. "I don't know what this is, okay? So please bear with me. I'm not… I just need this right now."

He brushes a kiss to her thumb when she trails it across his lips. They sway toward her bedroom and it's almost like they're dancing—or, rather, finishing a dance they started long ago.

*

In the morning, he's right beside her, rumpled and tangled in the bed sheets, his shoulders peeking out, bare and kissable. Zoe drapes herself over him and doesn't deny herself the small pleasure.

"Could make a habit of this," he murmurs into his bicep.

"Maybe we should."

"Mmm. Is that what you want?"

Zoe tucks her nose behind Karl's shoulder blade and wraps her arms loosely around him, her hair fanning over the expanse of his back. She thought once, that she knew what she wanted. Then she had another thought.

Now, suddenly, another. 

"I want everything," she whispers into his skin. She's only half-kidding but Karl chuckles anyway, vibrating beneath her. He captures her hand in his and holds it very loosely, just so she can let go. If she wants to.

"Welcome to the club," he says.

Zoe's mouth curves up. She's been here all along.


End file.
